San Diego  They’re used to it now, the roller coaster ride. Nothing much surprises Stephanie Crowe’s family any more.

So when a jury on Friday acquitted Richard Tuite in the 12-year-old girl’s slaying — nine years after a different jury had convicted him — Stephanie’s mother, Cheryl, sighed: “It is what it is.”

It’s arguably the most tortured criminal case in county history, a case that sits officially unresolved today, almost 16 years after the Escondido seventh-grader was stabbed nine times in her bed.

There have been three criminal prosecutions now, and another one seems unlikely, legal experts said. It’s a case drowned by reasonable doubt.

What about the three teens, including Stephanie’s brother, Michael, originally charged in the case? They've already been declared “factually innocent” in a court finding. The main evidence against them are incriminating statements they made -- and quickly recanted as false -- during lengthy police interrogations that multiple judges have since concluded were illegally coerced.

And Tuite, the mentally ill drifter with the victim’s blood on his shirts? He’s been acquitted and can’t be tried again.

“It’s over now, I guess,” said Steve Crowe, Stephanie’s father. “What hurts a lot is knowing that as far as the community is concerned, this is an unsolved murder. That’s not justice for my daughter.”

He said he understands why some jurors told reporters after their verdict that they found the case confusing. “The whole thing has been messed up from the beginning,” he said.

Here’s how topsy-turvy it was: During Tuite's trial, the prosecutor argued that the original Escondido investigation pinning the murder on the three teens was botched. That’s usually a defense strategy.

The defense, in turn, argued that the police got it right. How often does that happen?

To explain the most damning evidence in the trial, spots of Stephanie’s blood on Tuite’s clothes, the defense blamed inadvertent contamination by the police. That’s a common defense strategy, rarely successful. This time, Escondido police testified in support of the theory, an unusual public admission of incompetence.

Jurors were swayed. “We couldn’t convict somebody when there were too many questions and the possibility of contamination,” said one of them, who declined to give her name.

Moving forward

Stephanie’s parents and brother live in Oregon now. They moved in part to get away from the notoriety of the case, and from the lingering suspicion by some that Michael had a role in his sister’s death.

Michael was 14 then. He's 30 now, studying math at the University of Oregon. He wants to be an actuary. He and his wife, Stacey, have two sons, one born last year and the other just a week ago.

When Friday’s verdict was announced, Cheryl Crowe was playing with the oldest grandson, Alexander, in some new-fallen snow. Steve called her. They talked briefly. And then she went back to playing in the snow.

“We’re moving forward,” she said later. “The jury’s decision, there’s nothing we can do about that. We’ve learned to take it as it comes.”